Three systematic reviews of the literature provided an accurate summary of data available from randomised controlled trials evaluating human albumin (3), or comparing crystalloids to colloids in fluid resuscitation in critically ill patients (4,5). The first systematic review (3) has analysed 30 randomised trials and concluded that there is no evidence that albumin administration reduces the risk of death in critically ill patients. By contrast, this review suggested that albumin administration might increase by 6% the risk of death. In the Cochrane Injury Review Group systematic review (4), 40 randomised trials were analysed. The authors concluded that the administration of colloids might be associated with an absolute increase of 3.8% in the risk of death. The last review has analysed only 17 randomised trials as they decided to exclude studies of hypertonic saline. This review showed no significant difference in the risk of death between colloids and crystalloids or in other outcomes like prevalence of pulmonary edema and length of stay at the ICU and at the hospital (5). However, when the authors considered only the studies with a high methodological quality score, they observed a nice trend toward an increased survival rate in favour of crystalloids. They reached the same conclusions for the subset of trauma patients.